Files
Abstract
This study investigates the economic effects of external oil and food price shocks in the
context of selected Asia and Pacific countries including Australia, New Zealand, South
Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India and Thailand. The study is conducted within
the framework of SVAR model using quarterly data over the period 1980 to 2010 although
start date varies based on availability of data. The study reveals that resource poor countries
that specialize in heavy manufacturing industries like Korea and Taiwan are highly affected
by international oil price shocks. Oil price shocks negatively affect industrial output growth
and exchange rate and positively affect inflation and interest rates. On the other hand, oil
poor nations such as Australia and New Zealand with diverse mineral resources other than oil
are not affected by oil price shocks. Only exchange rates are affected by oil price shocks in
these countries. Furthermore, countries that are oil poor but specialized in international
financial services are also not affected by oil price increase. Similarly, developing country
Like India with limited reserve of oil is not affected by oil price shock. However, Thailand
possessing a number of natural resources other than oil is not accommodative of oil price
shocks. Limited impact of food prices can be recorded for India, Korea and Thailand in terms
of industrial output, inflation and interest rate. The major impact of food prices is that it helps
depreciating real effective exchange rate for almost all countries except Singapore. As a
whole, the effects of external oil and food prices depend on the economic characteristics of
the countries. The empirical results of this study suggest that oil and food prices should be
considered for policy and forecasting purposes especially for Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.